Wing Commander: Doveshire
by Pope Guilty I
Summary: The Terran Confederation Marine Corps land on McAuliffe VI, fighting their was to Doveshire to secure the landing zone for Confed's Army. A rookie Marine sees first hand the horrors of living under the Kilrathi.  Mind the typos :
1. Chapter 1

**Doveshire**

**Chapter 1**

**TCS **_**LT-922**_

**Approaching McAuliffe VI**

**McAuliffe System**

Private James Sullivan had never been so scared in his life. Every single creak and pop he heard within the confined of landing ship number nine hundred twenty-two, made him nearly jump out of his skin. Each noise he heard he believed to be his last. The older men in his squad insisted that the Navy would have cleared the orbit of Mac Six, but he retained his private reservations. He was the youngest in the squad, out of Basic two months ago. He was a replacement marine, and as with replacements all through the ages, the vets in his squad did not think much of them. Each of them had seen at least one planetary campaign. McAuliffe VI would be his first.

It was one of the first planets to fall to the Kilrathi, back in '34. Scuttlebutt said that not a Terran remained alive on the planet. Other rumors spoke of forced labor camps, slave markets, and most horrifying of all, ranches where humans were fattened up for the Cats to eat. Sergeant Fuchian said the last was complete nonsense. The Cats did eat Terrans, but usually in a pinch. The Sarge had seen some brutal fighting on Rostov III as well as Hubble III. Hubble III was the Sarge's first action. It was there he came across gnawed bones of Terrans. The Kilrathi did not butcher humans like cattle, but rather ate them the same way he would eat chicken. That was not a comforting thought.

At nineteen years of age, he vaguely remembered a time when humanity was not at war. He was born the year before first contact with the Cats. What he remembered most of his childhood was fear. Not his, for he was too young to understand the threat, but his parents were always afraid. They did their darnedest to cover-up their feelings, but he overheard them often enough. Being born on Earth Station, there was not exactly any bomb shelters buried beneath mountains he and his family could take cover within.

"Sullivan, how are you holding up?" Asked a giant of a man with distinct mongoloid features while making his rounds. Sullivan could easily imagine the Sarge as one of Genghis Khan's marauders. Of course, the Kilrathi made the Mongol Horde look like a bunch of pussy cats. Mongols destroyed cities; Cats destroyed whole worlds.

"I'm fine, Sarge," he lied. He was terrified, and both of them knew it.

Sergeant Fuchian had talked to him earlier, and Sullivan tried to deny he was scared, tried to play it cool. Fuchian saw right through it. He told him that if he was not scared, then he was either a liar or just not paying attention. Sullivan admitted as much, and then asked his squadron commander the sam question. Fuchian told him; "Every second I'm on the line."

This time, Fuchian only nodded. "Just stay close to McCoy."

The Martian sat next to him, harnessed into one of a thousand seats in the landing craft. "You'll be fine, Sully. Just relax," PFC McCoy told him. He knew a little about McCoy, such as, like all Martians, he had to endure some heavy-duty physical therapy just to walk in an invasion ship's Fleet Standard 0.8 G gravity. It was twice what he was born into. The Private First Class was taller than most, as well as slighter built. He looked nothing like the buff Marines seen in so many war vids.

The ship rocked again, throwing his further into his seat. Of all one thousand marines, only a few sergeants were out of their seats. None of them as much as stumbled when the ship lurched. They had their space legs for years. Sullivan doubted he ever would get his. He doubted he would survive the landing, the way the ship was rocking and rolling. _LT-922, _was one of a hundred such ships, each carrying a thousand Marines, which was set to hit the beach of Mac Six. Literally. The ships were designed to land on water. They could do the same on land, but it would require more fuel. They could touchdown, but taking off again was another matter.

For a couple of weeks, the Confederation Navy was hammering the Cats in orbit of Mac Six, as well as other points across the system. They just recently cleared the planet's orbit of Kilrathi defenses. As a Private, he knew precisely squat about what the Navy was doing. What little he could pick up was generated by the rumor mill, which ranged from on the mark all the way to space dragons ate the sun. The story he kept hearing was that the Cats' Admiral withdrew from battle. Withdrawal means a possible return.

He looked around the cramped interior of the invasion ship. He could spot his fellow rookies, by the wide-eyed expression upon their face. Did his look the same? He hoped not. If he was going to crash and burn on his first campaign, he was determined to do so with some dignity. He clutched his assault rifle tightly in his hands. The vets just sat back and relaxed. A few looked bored. A few more just looked pissed off at the bumpy ride.

If not for his combat armor, he imagined his harness would have left some serious bruises on his chest. His helmet was just as much for protecting his head from shrapnel and relaying information via comm-net, as it was for making sure he did not knock himself out before they splashed down. He wished he could see outside, but his own HUD could not tap into the ship's navigation system, and the grunt compartment had no windows. Something about windows being a structural weakpoint. Nothing would ruin a Marine's day faster than explosive decompression. If he was wearing a combat E-suit, then he might be able to ride that out, but the simple breather in his kit would not cut it.

When once the ship only occasionally rocked, it began to buffet wildly, much like an untamed horse. Not that he had ever seen a horse, not on Earth Station anyway. His first trip to Earth was after he enlisted and was shuttled down for Basic. He seldom left Earth Station in his youth, and even then it was either to Luna Station or the moon itself. Few horses inside the massive domed habitats. The rough ride reminded him of his first trip to Earth, once the shuttle hit the atmosphere. He assumed that meant _LT-922_ was inside McAuliffe VI's atmosphere.

His first thought went to planet-based defenses. During one of the many lectures in Basic, he saw a vid of one ship being hit inside the atmosphere, splitting wide-open and spilling Marines into a meteoric stream. The sight was enough to keep him up at nights, and more than once such a nightmare brought him sharply awake. He thought it pathetic; here he was, not even blooded, and he was already having nightmares. He wondered how the vets handled it, seeing what they saw.

The Sarge had returned to his seat once the ship hit the atmosphere– well, the mesosphere at any rate; the ionosphere and exosphere extended a great ways into space. "Alright grunts," Sullivan heard the Sarge. Sullivan could pick up a hint of the man's Chinese accent. Fuchian was born on Earth, and Fuchian was some sort of Latinization of his name. Sullivan once heard him called Fu Yi Qan or some such Mandarin– er, Chinese Common. Thanks to the Society of Mandar, Mandarin has become a four-letter word.

Fuchian continued. "We've got ten minutes before splashdown. I want a last check on weapons, and each of you to be ready to hit the pavement shooting. Lieutenant Peterson says the Navy pretty much bombed the shores around Doveshire to Hell and back three times over, but I don't want none of my grunts getting their assess shot off because the Navy wasn't _completely accurate of their assessment_." The last words came off thick with sarcasm, telling all the Marines exactly what he thought of the Navy.

According to scuttlebutt, the Navy made a similar statement at Rostov, and the 17th Marine Division landed in a firestorm, literally. The Cats fired enough pulse weapons to turn the air into an inferno. A lot of Marines were cut down before their even left their ships.

"Getting my lazy bone shot off is better than some other parts of me," he could hear McCoy muttered, covering his mike with one hand.

Sullivan agreed. Having one's posterior flamed by a plasma pulse was survivable. In fact, hit just right, it would be a million credit wound. But Sullivan did not travel through several jump points– that alone was torment enough to last a lifetime– to make it here, only to be shot in the first few minutes. Of course, he could not name a single ground-pounder who signed up to loose limbs and organs. The former was worse; internal organs can be cloned. Lose a leg or arm, and it was a prosthetic, and the cheapest, most reliable one the tax payer's credit could buy.

As the clock ticked down, he checked over his rifle for the hundredth time since entering the system. Once he was satisfied it was in shape to kill some Cats, he went over debarkation in his mind again. The battalion, part of the 198th Regiment, had drilled for hostile debarking upwards to a thousand times, either in a mock-up, the real thing, and even during planetary landing drills. The battalion was down to three minutes from fully packed into an invasion craft, to fully deployed, stomping tail and taking names.

The 17th Marine Division was only suppose to spend a couple of weeks on the surface uninterrupted. Everybody in the outfit knew the mission by heart. They would splashdown on the coast, some twenty kilometers from Doveshire. Afterwards, it was a simple matter of marching inland to the city and taking its spaceport. The marching would be the simple part; taking the spaceport in one piece was another matter. After that, larger, divisional ships can land, disgorging millions of soldiers of the Confederation Army to take over liberating the planet. That was the thing about being a Marine; sure the battles were brutal, but they were short.

**Landing Zone**

**McAuliffe VI**

**McAuliffe System**

Sullivan remained silent as he, and the whole transport's compliment, disgorged from _LT-922_ on the beach of Courland Bay. The beach was too quiet, with only the sounds of boots clanking down the ramp, and orders being barked by NCOs everywhere. Nothing stirred on the beach. In fact, little was left standing on the beach. The fleet gave the LZ a good working over, pounding any structure the Kilrathi can take shelter within from orbit. Hundreds of craters overlapped each other along the shores of the curving bay.

To the north and east, the colossal peak of Mount St. Benedict stood as a sentry for the bay. It was a large mountain, one of the largest Sullivan ever saw at some four-point-eight kilometers. At least it was before the bombardment. The fleet worked over the volcano, and its younger partner, Mt. Baden, as well as the beach. The smaller of the mountains was clearly missing its peak, while St. Benedict had a new crater in its slopes. If the Cats had any weapons built into the mountain before the landing, they sure did not anymore.

Smoke hung like a haze over the bay. It was not enough to block out the fierce sun, but it was enough to choke any Marine who was fool enough to walk off their ship without their breather. When he touched down off the ramp, his boots did not dig into sand, but rather crunched glass. It was only after he landed did he fully begin to comprehend the firepower the Terran Confederation Navy could bring down upon the heads of its enemies. Anything out in the open must have been vaporized. Just how could anybody survive such a bombardment?

"A tropical beach; this is a nice change of pace," McCoy broke the silence, his own gaze scanning the beach.

Beneath the star McAuliffe, the beach of Courland Bay was warm, tropical being as good a description as any. This was the sort of place where the whole battalion could take leave; if any of the trees still stood. It was not that much different than the beach where the 198th ran exercises not to long ago. Only a few kilometers to the southwest sat the town of Newtown, the 17th Marine Division's first objective. After that, it would simply be a matter of marching up the Emerald River to free Doveshire and its spaceport.

From his own ship, almost as far as Newport, hundreds of ships sat beached. It was a throwback to the ancient days that never seemed to fade. Invasion ships were large, and required a great deal of space to come to a stop. A sheltered bay spanning tens of kilometers offered the best choice. Otherwise, they might have landed on top of Doveshire, and took it by storm. Sullivan was just as glad that was not the case, for he might already be dead. From what he heard, only a few ships were shot down while entering the atmosphere. He briefly glanced about, trying to find any wreckage.

"Leave your gear and assemble up front!" barked Sergeant Fuchian. "The rear echelon sluggards will see that you get your packs when you need them. Take two days' worth of rations, all your ammo, and for the love of all the gods, don't forget your rifle!"

There were a few snickers at that, but Sullivan thought they sounded forced. Even the hardened veterans in the squad were nervous, anxious to their unknown fate. How many would survive to see tomorrow. Sullivan grinned despite himself; just how long was a day on this planet? It was in the brief, but he would be a son of a Varni if he could remember what it was. He supposed he would learn the length of day all in good order.

McCoy slapped Sullivan on the back as he was dropped his gear. "You're one lucky Marine, Sully. My first landing involved a lot of Cats trying to kill me on the way down."

Sullivan frowned. He was right, and did not like the prospect of wasting all his luck on just reaching the planet's surface. "Where are the Cats? They don't give up land this easy, do they?"

McCoy shrugged. "If they don't think they can win, they'll retreat. Maybe they were just overawed by the sight of this might invasion force?"

"Don't be an idiot, Private!" Fuchian barked. "Filling Sullivan's head with those types of ideas will get him, and you, killed."

"Then where are they?" McCoy asked. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you Sarge."

Fuchian pointed towards the west. "Inland. Cats hate the water." It made sense to Sullivan. He heard that Kilrah was one giant desert, with not even a sea in sight. "Don't worry men, we'll see plenty of Kilrathi soon enough."

**Ruins of Newtown**

**McAuliffe VI**

**McAuliffe System**

Thousands of Marines moved cautiously through what was left of Newtown. This might have once been a pleasant seaside town, with beaches and sunshine in excess. Sullivan was not so sure about the color of McAuliffe, but the thought of a quiet, semi-tropical beach was a dreamy one. Instead, the Fleet reduced the village to rubble during its bombardment of the LZ. If anybody was still alive in Newtown after having fusion warheads go off all over the place, he would be very surprised.

Next to him Pfc McCoy voiced the same thoughts. Noise discipline was relaxed, at least for the time being. The 148th Regiment, 17th T.C.M.C. Division was not likely to run into any enemies in this blasted place. Blasted in the most literal sense. Nothing stood more than a single story tall, and even the short buildings were missing roofs and walls. If not for the recent plastering, the rubble would make for great defensive positions. Other platoons in the Regiment were seeing to that. Courland Bay offered the best place so far that ships could touch down and resupply the invasion.

The ruins were quiet, so quiet that he could hear the flow of the Edward River as it emptied into the sea a klick off to his right. Despite knowing how impossible it would be to survive such a bombardment, Sullivan was still on edge. This was his first campaign, and though he heard the vets and their stories often enough, he still was uncertain as what to expect. Not knowing was vastly more horrifying than a certain fate. Would he live to see it over. Would he even live to see tomorrow?

Scattered about the ground where hundreds of charred bones. Some where unmistakably human, while others were alien indeed. Though they were made from calcium and had similar shapes, the bones of the Kilrathi were more robust. Not to mention larger. The average Cat was at least half a meter taller than the average human, and often more so. The Cats were big; big arms, big legs, big claws— even bigger teeth. One Cat skull sat staring lifelessly into the sky, its blackened surface still covered with chunks of roasted meet.

Sullivan wondered just what this Cat was doing in Newtown before the bombs fell. Like all newbies, he heard his own share of stories about what the Kilrathi do to conquered peoples. Several species have existed for centuries under Kilrathi yoke. A few years before he was born, a reptilian race, the Varni, fell to the Kilrathi. Only a handful of that species still lives free, refugees within the Confederation. Millions of others were scattered across Cat space, serving as slaves or even food. The last though angered and frightened him. What fate could be worse than to be a Cat's dinner?

Sullivan's heart started as he spotted sudden movement. It was no enemy, just a small creature, one who was coming out of the ruins. "Oh look, a cat," he said casually.

With those words, the veterans in his squad hit the dirt, their weapons at the ready and fingers on hair trigger alert. It was not until after he spoke did Sullivan realize what was happening. He pointed at the little cat lurking in the shadows. "Somebody's house cat."

Several Marines burst out laughing, breaking some of their tension. Fuchian glared at all of them, and at Sullivan. "That's not funny," he said, rising to his feet.

As the Marines continued onward, McCoy stepped up to Sullivan. "You realize, Sully, that we are totally screwed now."

"How so?" Sullivan asked. He knew the Sarge was not pleased with his choice of words while pointing out the feline.

McCoy snorted. "If some little tabby could survive this bombardment, how do you think the Cats fared?"

Sullivan considered his words, and did not like the conclusion he was forced to draw.


	2. Chapter 2

**Doveshire**

**Chapter 2**

**Suburbs of Doveshire**

**McAuliffe VI**

Sullivan threw himself to the ground just a spilt second behind the veterans in his units. A few Marines were even slower, and they paid the prices. Tungsten masses driven out of an autocannon slammed into their unprotective flesh. At hypersonic velocity, anything striking the human body would create a spectacular, albeit brief, meat fountain. Gore splatted all around Sullivan as those slower than him ended their careers in the Corps.

"Return fire!" Fuchian barked. The sergeant did not enjoy hearing Kilrathi weapon fire and Terran weapons silent.

Like the rest of the Marines, Sullivan had trouble locating the Kilrathi autocannon. This did not stop a few from blindly firing away at any glint of light that caught their attention. He had to blink away the dust away from his eyes. When he hit the deck, he took a more literal slant on the phrase, planting his face firmly into the tarmac of a dilapidated road. He roses his head slightly, to get a better look of where his attackers sat.

There was not much to see of the city. Doveshire, or its suburbs, were not pounded at levels anywhere near the intensity of Courland Bay. Fighters worked over stretches of the city with plasma cannons, and Marine gunships dropped bombs of a more restrained type than the nuclear barrage of the invasion beach. No sense in destroying the very city the Marines were suppose to liberate. Even less sense in risking terminal damage to the Doveshire Spaceport.

The Cats were firing away from one of the abandoned houses. At lease Sullivan assumed they were abandoned. So run down where the buildings, and overgrown the lawns, surely not a single human has lived in the neighborhood for years. Opposite the houses, Sullivan's unit had the Edward River as protection. Nothing stirred on its banks, except native species of grasses rustling in a slight breeze.

Several other Marines noticed the breeze and turned their weapons on the plants. The grasses did not stand a chance against super-hot plasma, and all blades burst into flames upon impact. Roars came from the growth, a sound not even the most exotic of plants could produce. Sullivan briefly saw large humanoid shapes emerge from the grasses, his fur ablaze. The four Kilrathi struggled against their own pain as they fired on the Marines. One Cat tried to make for the river. Cats might not like water, but they enjoyed burning alive even less.

The retreating Cat was cut down by Terran fire, only a second before his three comrades were overwhelmed by two squad's worth of plasma rifles. Sullivan's first glimpse of the enemy was not all he expected. He imagined a wave of blood-thirsty Cats charging him with claws extended. Instead, he saw nothing but soldiers slogging through the undergrowth. They did look something like lions, that much of the stories was at least true.

As many veterans told him on the flight to Mac Six; there was no time to fear in the middle of a firefight. Plenty of time for fear after the rifles fell silent. Sullivan struggled to heed their advice. His heart was hammering inside. Where he saw wind blown grasses, his comrades saw enemies. He never would have known their presence, at least not until they leapt upon him. Uncontrollable shaking began to rack his body, unsteadying his aim.

Sullivan paused to take a deep breath. No, he had to push his terror into a corner of his mind. He could not let it overwhelm him. Any Marines who gave into fear was a dead Marine. True, Sullivan feared a fate at the claws of the Cats, but what he feared even more was appearing a coward in the face of his fellow Marines.

"Wake up Sully!" McCoy crawled up to him, planting an elbow into his helmet. Sullivan looked at him, struggling to fight the trembling. "No time for napping. Just point your rifle at that old house and fire. Don't worry about aiming, just fill it full of plasma"

Sullivan nodded, unable to form words in his mind. Laying prone, he followed McCoy's example and began to unleash bolts of plasma at the autocannon. He could faintly see flashes in the darkness of a broken out window, flashes and motion. The house might have been nice, once upon a time. Now, with so many Marines firing upon it, its lawn began to smolder and the paint was all but vaporized.

He could faintly hear his sergeant shouting commands into his headset. Obviously a different channel if Sullivan could not hear him. It was a strange realization in the middle of a battle, and one that almost set Sullivan laughing. He fought back the giggles, afraid that if he started, he could not stop. Afraid that madness might follow. He would not be the first Marine, or even soldier, to crack up in the face of the enemy.

He never wondered what Fuchian was calling, not even as the gunship flew over head. The streamline of the Marine gunship was evidence that it was an atmospheric vehicle, never to see the blackness of space. It was a gnarly looking durasteel hawk, with laser turrets instead of talons. Lasers flashed from the belly of the gunship, illuminating the Kilrathi strong point past its flash point. The former house both melted and burst into flames, destroying anything within it walls.

Calm fell over the Marines as the sounds of crackling fire replaced those of rifle shot. Several Marines, each veterans, cautious stood to survey their surroundings. If the Cats had any snipers in the region, Fuchian just made himself a tempting target. When his head did not explode after a few seconds, the rest of his squad slowly drew themselves up from the ground.

"Time to get up, Sully," McCoy said, grabbing hold of his arm and lifting him from prone position.

Sullivan discovered standing was not as easy as it looked. Gravity was still the same, but his knees were having difficultly supporting his mass. Uncontrollable shakes wracked his body. He found himself very annoyed with his own body, so openly betraying what it felt. He struggled to stop, but to little avail. The hands that were suppose to hold his own body were shaking the worst.

McCoy noticed it. Not difficult, since Sullivan's whole body jiggled. "Relax, Sully."

Fear began to creep up upon him, and Sullivan found himself very jumpy. Those Kilrathi in the brush could have killed him. So could the gunner. He could have been hit, instead of the Marine a few meters behind him. "I– I–" Sullivan tried to talk, but his jaw was not as steady as it use to be.

The Martian gave him a wane smile. "Scared? Good! That proves you're not stupid. Don't worry about it. Any man here who says he's not is either a liar, or just not paying attention." How many times in the history of human armed forces was that line uttered to rookies? By the look on McCoy's face, the PFC could not believe he even said it. "That was too bloody cliche. Ah, forget about it, Sully. The shakes will stop in good time."

McCoy proved correct. The shakes did stop, taking far longer than Sullivan planned. Looking around at other rookies, and even a few vets, he lost some of his shame. Even hard-nosed ground pounders' hands shook. A few Marines ever grow visible, and audibly ill, after the firefight. The vets gave those rookies a hard time, but none were purposely malicious in their teasing. Even McCoy joined in.

Siting next to Sullivan at their first rest since the fight, McCoy pointed at one rookie who lost his breakfast, and part of last night's dinner. "See, could be worse Sully. Poor Jones there won't hear the end of it."

Strangely enough, his stomach was one of the few parts of his body that did not bother him. If anything, the energy burnt in the fight made him hungry. With only so many ration bars on him, he had to conserve food. Water was another matter. He pulled the stopper on his canteen and took a swig. It was almost as warm as the air in Doveshire, but still as refreshing as if it were chilled overnight. "Give it time," Sullivan finally said.

McCoy laughed. "That's the spirit! 'Cheer up, it could be worse. So we cheered up, and it got worse'."

No matter how rotten Sullivan felt, he was several grades in better shape than Doveshire. Though still kilometers from the city center, and almost as far as the spaceport sandwiched between the Edward and Emerald Rivers, Doveshire was all around them. It looked not a whole lot different from urban centers on Earth. In the middle of the city stood towers– or what was left of them after the Kilrathi conquest. All around those towers for many kilometers sprawled development.

His squad took five at an intersection of two wide streets. No signs remained standing to give him a clue as to street names. On the corner they sat, a grocer's once existed. The shop was long since boarded shut. Two other corners held commercial buildings of one sort or another. Sullivan spotted the word dentist on one of the faded signs. On the fourth corner stood a battered apartment complex. Sign of inhabitation were abound, including the fact somebody ploughed under the lawn and established a corn farm upon it.

Sullivan brought his rifle up quickly at a sudden motion in the half-grown corn. McCoy reacted instinctively, taking aim at whatever Sullivan saw. He relaxed slightly when he noticed that Sullivan was not staring down a two-point-five meter tall hairball. "Would you look at that."

Sullivan was doing just that. Across the street, three figures emerged from the corn, with several more eyes peering through boarded closed windows, and cracked doorways. "Hey Sarge! We got company."

"Hostile?" Fuchian asked as he hustled to his feet, rifle in hand.

"I don't think so," Sullivan said. "Or if they are, they won't be much of a match for us."

The shambling wrecks were slowly shuffling towards them. These people were not the emaciated zombies one might find on a liberated world that was not fully self-sufficient. Mac Six had enough food to go around, so the civilians' bodies were not skeletal. To his surprise, the civilians did not even have the stench of occupation. Doveshire had more than enough water for bathing, as well as farming.

What struck him first were their eyes. The eyes of each civilian carried the horrified look of people who have seen too much. McCoy told Sullivan about his own first invasion, and how the civilians carried around a haunted stare. He could not imagine what these people had suffered after thirteen years of occupation. Sullivan did not want to know. Probably the sort of things that would take a team of psych-guys a lifetime to untangle.

"Are they gone?" asked one of the stumbling civilians. She was young, perhaps a couple of years older than Sullivan. In her arms she held a bundled infant. Hers, Sullivan could not tell. Both had the same shade of dark skin, but the infant could be a cousin or niece of nephew. Not that any of that mattered to the Marines. The native might have been pretty once, but now her face was covered with years worth of worry lines, premature wrinkles.

Sullivan and McCoy exchanged glances. The Cat? Gone? They both wished. That would make liberating Mac Six a lot easier. Neither had the chance to answer, for Fuchian stepped in to take charge. A good trait in a sergeant. "For now, ma'am, the Cats look to be hiding for the moment. Anything you or your neighbors can tell us about them would be a great help."

Sullivan did not care for how the civies were starting to crowd them. If the Cats were to jump out and ambush, all the natives would be mowed down. Still, he found it hard to yell at them to get away, not when he saw glistening hope beneath the years of despair in most of their eyes. Sullivan paused. Most of their eyes– but not all. One of the civilians looked at the Marines, or rather through them. His face was all but blank. Not only that, he wore enough clothing to look like he belonged in an alpine climate.

"McCoy, what do you make of that one?" Sullivan pointed at the blank-faced man.

As usual, McCoy drew his own conclusion. "You mean the blonde? She'd be worth chancing after she washed some of that dirt from her face. She must have just came out of the garden."

Sullivan grumbled beneath his breath something very unflattering. "No, I mean the fellow who looks like he's planning on climbing glaciers in the Urals."

McCoy scrutinized the odd man. "That is strange. He probably seen more of the Cats than the rest of them. They can do things to your mind, weird things."

Which was close to what the brown lady was telling the Sarge. "Sometimes they come at night to drag someone away. We usually see them in a week or two. Sometimes, they never come back. That's the worse part; not knowing what happened to them, or if you're next."

Fuchian nodded. He heard similar things on other worlds. The Cats loved to play their mind games with conquered peoples. Escaped Varni often told of their own people being brainwashed to kill other Varni. The Lizard could be normal as could be one moment, the next– they snap and start shooting until somebody knocks them out.

"I wonder if they did that here," Sullivan mused.

McCoy shrugged. "We'll find out when–"

His words were silenced by a deafening blast. A blast so strong that the two Marines, and most of the crowd were thrown to the ground. Sullivan slammed into pavement with a muffled grunt. The blast stunned him momentarily, blanking his own mind. McCoy was quicker in shaking away the cobwebs. "Sully, you're hit!"

Sullivan could feel nothing but the ringing in his head. Wherever that shell landed, it was close. A minor miracle that the explosion did not pull his lungs out through his nose. His had ran up and down the length of his own body, checking for shrapnel imbedded in him. He shook his head, unable to find anything. He was covered in gore– as was McCoy. "I'm not the only one," he shouted, pointing at the blood splattered all over McCoy's light armor.

As the ringing stopped, the screamed of wounded and terrified civilians filled the air. Wails of the mortally wounded echoed in Sullivan's mind for days to come, like the wails of banshees. Fuchian was already up– or did he even fall?– barking orders. Marine corpsmen rushed over with stretchers. With so many civilians down and wounded, a few medics were not going to cut it. Sullivan made his way over to assist the corpsmen.

He treaded carefully, avoiding stepping on civilians. Or even parts of them. Parts– yes, that might explain why he heard no incoming fire. He glanced around, looking for the mountain climber. Where he was more or less standing, all that remained were a pair of shoes and some ragged flesh sticking out of them. "McCoy!" he shouted again, this time against the cries, pointing at the shoes.

"Your mountain climber blew up!" McCoy said in genuine astonishment.

"What are you two gumming about?" Fuchian snapped, gesturing for them to aid the corpsmen. When Sullivan explained what he saw earlier, Fuchian's jaws clenched and his face with white with rage. "Damned Cats!" He paused to tap into his helmet's microphone. "Captain, the Cats have suicide bombers out here. We just met one– No, sir, none of men were wounded, but the civies are a horrible mess. Yes, sir, assistance would be greatly appreciated."

"Suicide bombers?" Sullivan asked, looking at McCoy. His comrade simply shrugged. He heard of pilots during Earth's Pacific War crashing into enemy carriers as a last line of defense. He even recalled some religious fanatics– he disremembered which sect, doing the same thing. The later were hated in the Corps; crashing into a heavily armed warship was one thing; blowing ones' self up in a crowd of noncombatants was quite another.

Once finished speaking to the Captain, Fuchian switched back to his squad's channel. "Alright Marines, we're going to have to keep our eyes open for more of these bombers."

"Hey, Sarge," one of the other Marines asked. "Why would these guys blow themselves up after we arrive?"

Fuchian scowled, remembering other worlds liberated. "They probably don't even know they are. The Cats are real good at screwing with your mind. Some of the civies that gone missing for weeks on end were probably brainwashed and programmed as suicide bombers. The hairballs love playing mind games."

Sullivan clenched his own fist, tight enough he could feel his nails digging into palm. Sullivan never knew hatred before in his life, nothing even remotely as intense as what he felt for those who killed that man. He was not alone in his visible anger, and Fuchian caught on quickly. "Cool your reactors, grunts. Don't go losing you heads over this. That's what they want you to do. And trust me, turning humans into mind won't be greatest horror we'll face here. Trust me."


	3. Chapter 3

**Doveshire**

**Chapter 03**

**Doveshire**

**McAuliffe VI**

Sullivan watched flashes of light in the distance as the battle for control of Doveshire ran on through the night. The heaviest fighting was no more than a kilometer away. Flashes and fires from the battle lit up the night, washing away the strange formations of stars in the sky. After a lifetime around Earth, Sullivan was accustomed to the constellations. He knew they changed the further from Sol one jumped, and that they would be all but unrecognizable in the Vega Sector. He still misses the familiar clusters he could spot from Earth Station while Earth eclipsed the sun.

Most of the company was trying their hardest to get some shut eye in the warehouse basement of a Ruyter's. Everything about Mac Six was alien to him, from the stars to the stores. McCoy, on early watch along side him, took it all in stride. He sat on an overturned crate, cradling his plasma rifle and keeping an eye on the night. "One good thing about the fires," McCoy told him. "Makes it a lot easier to see anyone approach." The funeral pyre of the city backlit the surroundings. If even so much as a mouse– or the local equivalent– moved, they would notice.

"Can't see the stars though," Sullivan pointed out. Unlike the vet, Sullivan kept the butt of his rifle tucked into his shoulder, and surveyed the surrounding neighborhood down the barrel of a rifle. Not much to see in this commercial district of the city. Even less to see while sitting in the shattered entrance to a department store.

McCoy hissed. "Sully, you're not suppose be watching the stars. Didn't you get enough of them on the way in?" Though McCoy tried his hardest to never be serious– a mental defense the doctors said– he did not like the thought of his comrade daydreaming in the middle of the night. Especially in a night full of large, predatory cats. Might not be the leopards of distant ancestral memories, but just as lethal. Or rather more so. The cats of East Africa lacked the ability to raze whole continents when angered.

"You think my mind can wander in all of this?" he asked, waving his rifle at the scene before them. The parking lot was surprisingly clean when they arrived. The Cats must have had all the derelict vehicles from when they invaded melted down and recycled into something useful. Those, and the lamp posts that should have lit it. Now, the only vehicles parked on the pavement were a few armored personnel carriers, two of them mounted with surface-to-air missile launchers. The rest had laser turrets, much more useful in shooting down incoming artillery rounds than the missiles.

"Don't worry, McCoy, my mind can't go anywhere here– well, nowhere I'd enjoy." The scene of the human mine replayed in his head too often for him to want to think. What was going through that civie's mind? Was anything going through it? The docs say that the Cats are real good at implanting suggestions, commands, and even explosives into you. Did the Cats put a bomb in that man? A bomb on the outside would explain the coat, but the inside– perhaps he knew something was amiss and acted strange as a warning.

He was assured that could not be the case. Kilrathi brainwashing went deep, down to the subconscious. Suicide bombers no more aware of what they were doing than locked missiles. The suggestions were planted not only deep, but to last. All that was required to activate them was a simple phrase, a flash of lights, even an image. Another disturbing thought entered his head. If they could be dormant for so long, then how many of the recruits from liberated worlds were bombs just waiting to go off. It would be bad enough for the Marines, or even the Army, but worse for the Navy. A bomb up there could kill a lot more than a couple dozen non-combatants.

"I know what you mean. Didn't see much of this on my previous campaign. A whole lot of wilderness and starbase and not much in the way of population." McCoy stopped briefly for consideration. "Not much chance to add another girlfriend to my list."

Sullivan snapped his gaze over at the Vet. "Another what?"

McCoy gave a grin like a lower-case cat who ate a canary or two. "You didn't know? I thought everybody in the squad knew. I have myself a woman in almost every port. Three at Sol alone; Mars, Luna and Mercury."

Sullivan gave him a skeptical look. Sometimes McCoy could seem wise and insightful, other times he just like to spew such utter rubbish. "What, don't have one on Earth?"

McCoy shook his head. "Never did like that place much. Too heavy there."

Sullivan was starting to think this was another one of his rubbish sessions. "It's not that much heavier than here." Being born on Earth Station, which rotated for something less than 9.797 meters-per-second-squared, he could understand how Earth could make you feel heavy.

McCoy waved the thought away with a brisk swing of his hand. "That's for walking, marching and killing. Comfort's not an issue there. For love making, I prefer a more civilized gravity."

"Come on, McCoy, everybody knows Martians can't get it up under normal gravity," called out PFC Bastion, a member of the next squad over. To this, other insomniacs chuckled at McCoys's expense.

"Hey, Bastion," McCoy replied, shortly before giving him an appropriate one-finger salute and then spewing out a string of obscenities that would have made Sullivan's DI weep with pride. It did not have the same effect on Bastion, who just laughed at McCoy, along with his comrades. "Bloody peanut gallery," McCoy muttered after he was finished. He turned back to Sullivan, scowling. "And wipe that stupid smirk off your face, Sully."

Sullivan choked back a laugh of his own. "Yes sir, your lordship."

McCoy grumbled further. "Bad enough getting flak from those jokers, now I have to sit here and get it from my own squad mates."

"That's all you'll be getting on this planet," Bastion took one more snipe before trying to catch up on his shut eye.

McCoy picked up the nearest fist-sized object and tossed it at the other Marine. Sullivan watched as it dropped harmlessly out of range. "I hope you aim with grenades is better."

McCoy shrugged. "Not really. Throwing has never been a strength." Again, a product of his birth. That was why there were so few professional athletes from Mars.

Sullivan briefly watched the Marines inside the warehouse before turning back to the outside world. "How do they do it?"

"What? Annoy me?" McCoy asked. He had no solid answer, nor even an explanation why everybody simply did not love him.

"No. How do they sleep." Sullivan was hesitant to sleep, not after the things he has seen on Mac Six.

"It's easy when you're dead tired," McCoy told him. He then explained that Marines should never pass up chances for sleep, chow and latrines. It's a rule older than the Corps.

Sullivan knew he would not get a second's worth of sleep tonight. After his turn on watch was complete, he would lay there, tossing and turning. He was too keyed up to sleep, too much on edge. Every shadow outside held a Cat within it. Every movement was the enemy sneaking up upon him. They would come in the night. That was what cats of all sizes did after all. He might not even catch as much as a wink as long as he was on this planet.

Sullivan started awake at the sudden shaking around him. When did he fall asleep? Sullivan did not remember sleep overtaking him, nor was it interrupted by a single dream. He just laid down after watch, and next thing he knew, the world was rattling. Earthquake was his first thought, though there was no such thing inside Earth Station. All he knew about quakes was academic, that they shook everything and were loud.

He was not the only Marine confused. He did notice that only a few of the Vets were confused. The rest were on their feet, rifles in hand. Sullivan readied his own weapon, trying is best to imitated his elders. In function he managed, but in staying calm– that was a failure. Whatever was causing the shaking was growing louder. As a Spacer, he was not accustomed to the sounds all these flat-footed Marines took for granted. His mental library of annoying sounds was low, but this almost sounded like construction equipment.

"Clear the walls!" Fuchian barked, along with every other NCO and Officer in the subterranean warehouse.

With a sudden boom, a distant wall cracked and collapsed, pinning several Marines. A large, durasteel cone breached the wall, crushing some, ripping others to pieces. The monster drill kept right on charging, clearing the rubble completely. Recognition was swift once the noise sat in the middle of the room. A Kilrathi drill-tank, the Cats' way of breaching fortified locations. Sullivan readied himself for what had to be right behind the drill-tank.

Several lion-shaped shadows emerged from the breach, claws extended. These Cats left their rifles slung over their backs. Marines closest to the breach that were not killed by it were pounced by the Kilrathi, who slashed and mauled them to death. More distant Marines had a few seconds on their sides, where they either brought up their rifles, or wielded decidedly medieval looking weapons. Melee weapons might be history in wars among humans, but when a man faces something more than twice his size, and has five out of six ends pointed, a short sword was mighty useful. More than one Cat lost a paw to the Marines.

Sullivan managed to shake off the shock of the attack, and began to unload upon the Kilrathi. He was not the only Marine. Enough plasma rifles barked that the warehouse heated to an uncomfortable level. The Cats noticed the same thing. Behind their blood-lusted vanguard, a more organized Kilrathi assault emerged. All these Cats wore combat E-suits, and a few giant tanks on their back. Genius was not required to figure out what they were.

"Go for the flamers," somebody called out. Was it Fuchian? Sullivan could not tell. Above the roar of rifles and now flamethrowers, voices were hard to differentiate.

Next to Sullivan, McCoy threw down his plasma rifle, and pulled out something a little more archaic. With each pump of his new weapon, a loud boom joined the cacophony of sounds drowning his ears. McCoy's shotgun was not for bird hunting. He fired rounds of phosphorus flechette, guaranteed to set anything on fire. As the air grew unbreathable, Sullivan slapped on his breather. It would do little against the heat, but at least he would not choke to death.

One of the Kilrathi flamers discovered just what flechette could do. The Cat exploded into a walking inferno, flames so intense they cooked him alive inside his E-suit. Marines began to back away from the heat, towards the exits. Marines were as tough as humans came, but all the will in the world could not stop heated air from burning up lungs. The only plus he could notice through the smoke and flames was that the drill-tank was too large to bring its lasers into the battle. That sort of heat would end it in a hurry.

The order to retreat was sounded, though Sullivan was not sure by who. "Come on, Sully," McCoy said. "Now's not the time to start disobeying orders."

Sullivan did not like the idea of running. He did not fly across so many systems just to have the Cats push them back. Still, he was not about to argue. Though his gear was now fuel for the flames. One of the suited Cats lunged from the fire straight at him. Sullivan brought up his rifle and blasted away with plasma. If the shots did any harm, the Cat obviously did not care. Sullivan nearly tripped over himself leaping back from a swiping paw.

In the place of claws, the Cat wielded something that looked like a cross between a gauntlet and garden rake. Sullivan could see the frenzy in the Cat's eyes, his lips curled back in a vicious snarl. A second later, he could see what lay behind the face as a shot from McCoy's shotgun blew out the face plate of the Cat's E-suit. Sullivan began to shake and curse at the same time. Not all his curses were aimed at the mad Kilrathi. He cursed his own body. Now was not the time to shake. He told his body to wait until after they escaped.

His body did relax once upon the surface, and in the cooler air of a Mac Six morning. Far fewer Marines escaped than he expected. The Cats must have breached near the entrance, trapping a great many of the company beneath the ground. Overhead, his battered ears managed to pick out the sound of incoming fire. Artillery rounds began to slam into the Ruyter's building. Where the Cats bringing down the building on their own... Cats?

No, he realized the rounds were coming in from Terran positions. "What are they doing? Marines are still in there." Sullivan wanted to rush back into the fire and drag them out.

He wanted to, but firm hands held him. "They're wasted, private," it was Fuchian, with a mask both grim and furious behind his breather. "An unprotected body can't survive that inferno. Battalion HQ is going to make sure protected ones won't survive either. Had to be a whole company of Cats down there."

"We can't just leave them–" Sullivan insisted. After all, Marines did not leave their own behind.

Fuchian growled. "I know, but we are. I don't like any more than you do. Less, in fact. I've known some of those men since Hubble's Star. Probably a whole platoon's worth of Marines killed, and it's not even breakfast."

A few more rounds brought the department store down upon itself. The boom of the collapsing building kicked up a storm of dust and debris. Most of it probably toxic. A few explosions were muffled by the collapsed structure; flamer tanks exploding. Three more rounds slammed into the rubble pile, one detonating with enough force to knock Sullivan and Fuchian off their feet.

With a thump and a rush of air, Fuchian hissed in satisfaction. "That double-damned drill-tank won't be bothering anyone again. We're lucky it didn't come in under the stairs– probably their intent."

Luck. Had they managed, the whole company would have been trapped, and Sullivan would now be one of the dead. It was not skill or merit that saved his life, but the dumb luck of sleeping near the exit. Was that how war was suppose to play out? Better men died because of dumb luck?

"Get up, you lugs," Fuchian barked as he climbed to his feet. "The day's still young and we still have plenty of ways to get killed. Let's not make Death's job any easier for him."


	4. Chapter 4

**Doveshire**

**Chapter 4**

**Downtown Doveshire**

**McAuliffe VI**

Sullivan wondered for the hundredth time just how he and McCoy ended up in this foxhole with a genuine crazy Marine. Corporal Larson was head of an autocannon team; two to carry the weapon and a third for the ammo. Only problem was, one of the team was dead. As long as the gun did not have to move, it could easily operate with a gunner and a reloader. Unlike old machine guns with their belts, autocannons housed their rounds inside drums. Five hundred tungsten rounds in each drum. The autocannon had fewer moving parts than most weapons, simply being a small mass driver, firing its rounds with electromagnets.

With so much fire coming from both directions, neither of the riflemen felt much like leaving the relative comfort of a foxhole. They reckoned this was once a park, but could not confirm it. The park was a kilometer from either river, and near the commercial district of the city. Where once stood towers exceeding fifty floors, now rested piles of concrete and steel, twisted like industrial fossils. The buildings came down only a few hours ago, and dust still clogged the air. McCoy told him that their collapse was a good thing. It meant the Kilrathi were losing. Once a position is in their claws, they only destroy it when they know they can not hold it.

If the implosion of downtown was good news, Sullivan dared not think of bad. Larson was a veteran of a few invasions himself. Sullivan could tell by not just his cool under fire, but the homemade necklace he wore over his body armor. Precious metal or gems did not hang from them. Instead, the big blonde wore a necklace of claws. Each claw came from the trigger finger of a Kilrathi soldier he killed. A gruesome means to keep track of kills, and not a very effective one. Did he really kill that many Cats? Perhaps, but only with an autocannon and not the rifle slung over his back. Certainly never with the Kilrathi hunting knife that rested in his belt.

"How you feeling, McCoy?" Larson called over his shoulder. The two of them served together on a previous campaign, one that involved taking back a starbase. "Ready to kill us some more Cats."

McCoy gave him a mean grin. "I'd say it's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum, but I appear to be all out of gum."

Larson laughed despite the battle raging around him. "Anyone who can quote Duke Nukem is alright in my book."

Nukem was another one of those tidbits of information one picked up in the Corps. Sullivan never found any records or documents to support his existence, but Marines insisted he was the first Terran to plant his boot on an alien face. He was a legend among them. Sullivan would have called him a myth; he was suppose to have existed before humanity ever left Sol, so there was no way he could have fought aliens. Not to mention no alien invasion has ever struck Earth.

"You suppose he's related to John Wayne?" the ammo feeder asked. "They're both Dukes after all."

Larson shook his head. "No, wrong generation. Wayne took part in one of the big world wars. Killed on some island fighting the Japanese." John Wayne was another of those legendary figures from centuries past. Marines insisted he was one of their own while the Navy insisted he was a sailor, and had documents to prove it. Even the Army claimed him as their own.

"I thought he was wasted in Vietnam. I saw some footage of him with weapons more advanced than the Pacific War." McCoy had a point. The Duke, as he was known, did seem to get around. Sullivan could not put much stock in any of it. Sure, there was solid evidence he existed, but media records before 2090, were incomplete at best. Since the hard copies were neglected after the data was transferred to computers, and those computers were destroyed by the EMP of a nuclear war, the truth may never be known.

Larson waved away McCoy's idea. "No way, he was a Pacific War man, hoping islands like we hop planets."

The ammo feeder, following the argument, dropped in his own two credits. "I could have sworn the man was a pilot."

The other two Marines glared at him as he just blasphemed. "That's what the Navy would like you to think," Larson replied, as if there was a solid conspiracy aimed at the Corps.

Sullivan shook his head at the surreal debate. Here they were, trapped in a fox hole, in the middle of a burning city, and these grunts were fighting over to which branch of the service some long dead man belonged. They could be killed at any moment, and McCoy and the gunner were trying to hash out when he died. It was ridiculous. It was laughable too, though Sullivan still dared not to laugh for fear of being unable to stop.

"Is this really time to be having this talk?" Sullivan shouted over a nearby explosion. Rounds from Kilrathi artillery made his ears ring, and left him wondering if he was ever heard.

McCoy shot him a mockingly annoyed glance. "It's never the time for you, Sully! Just once, think of my needs."

Sullivan rolled his eyes, wanting to smack him with the butt end of his rifle. With comrades like McCoy, were the Cats even needed?

The Kilrathi believed as much. For as soon as McCoy spoke, Larsen let out a string of vicious curses. "Not this again!"

Sullivan peaked over the rim of the foxhole, and what he saw was surprising. In what had developed into a dead zone, dozens of Terran civilians were shuffling forward. If it was not the time for historical debates, it certainly was not the time for refugees. He saw nothing astonishing about them. They were just a motley collection of civilians, their clothes turning into rags, moving slowly forward. Something about how they moved puzzled him. They looked like they were being herded.

Behind the wall of civilians, he saw the helmets of several taller, larger people. Way too big to be Terrans, and he knew of no Wu on Mac Six. They were large enough to be Kilrathi– McCoy noticed this too, and let out his own imaginative oath. "I'm getting sick of this human shield nonsense," he spat. "They know bloody well we'll shoot through them."

Sullivan dreaded the idea of killing civies just to waste Cats, but McCoy was right. If they did not shoot through them, the Cats would move with impunity. Some of those refugees were probably plants too, suicide bombers in case the Cats could not reach their target. McCoy raised his rifle at the oncoming wave. "You know what we need? Some sort of genome-based weapon. Something that'll kill Kilrathi and leave the civies alone."

Such biological weapons did exist, according to rumor. They were seldom used, and never on Terran worlds. Aside from centuries of ethical repulsion of the weapons, a great many Kilrathi Prides lived in the Confederation, and actively aided against the Kilrathi government. None of those Prides had any love for the Imperial Pride. It was all big news, and Confed milked it for everything it was worth.

"What, and kill off the Cats who like us?" Larsen said with a sneer. "Didn't you know it's more important to protect aliens than our own kind?"

McCoy shrugged, jostling his weapon in the process. "The Cats haven't used them. Maybe they haven't thought of them, so why go giving them ideas?"

Larsen muttered something strong, but so low that nearby explosions drowned it out. He looked over at his ammo feeder. "Alright grunt, when they cross that toppled street lamp, we open up on them."

The idea of shooting through them sickened Sullivan, but he knew there was little choice. Artillery was already bringing rounds down behind the refugees. Fragmentation rounds bursts in the dim hope of killing the Cats behind the wave, and minimizing casualties among the civilians. In his few days on Mac Six, Sullivan discovered a hundred new reasons to hate the Kilrathi. Why could they not just come out and fight?

Cats always boasted at being mighty warriors, but what sort of warrior used noncombatants as shields? Even the nastiest humans from Earth's history seldom did such things. The Cats had no value for life, especially that of aliens. If a Kilrathi would throw his own life away in defiance, it should not be a surprise they would throw masses of Terrans at other, and better armed ones. His hopes jumped when he saw two of the Cats crouching behind the refugees fly into the air in more than two pieces. Maybe artillery would kill them all.

Or perhaps not. As they approached the toppled and slightly melted lamp post Larsen designated, Sullivan knew they would not stop. Marines would be forced to shoot through them. Sullivan wondered if the families of those refugees could forgive the Marines for what they were about to do. Less than a second later, he decided it would not matter, for he knew he could never forgive himself for doing what needed doing.


	5. Chapter 5

**Doveshire**

**Chapter 5**

**Outside Doveshire Spaceport**

**McAuliffe VI**

Nearly a week on Mac Six, and the spaceport was nearly cleared. That did not mean the Army could come in, not yet at any rate. Kilrathi strong points were still within weapons' range. That meant they could shell the spaceport, which they frequently did, or shot down anything attempting to land. That, in turn, meant the Marines' job was incomplete. Even clearing out those strong points would not free the Marines. They would still have to hold the line outside of the city while the Army landed. Once a division or two of infantry and armor were dirt side, then the Marines could leave this rock.

For Sullivan, leaving could not come too soon. The idea of thinking beings, even those as brutal as the Cats, trying to kill him no longer bothered him. It was war, and both sides had their job to do– it just so happened the Terran Confederation Marine Corps was better at it than the Kilrathi Army. No, what bothered him, and would haunt him for the rest of his days, was what the Cats did. Suicide bombers, human shields, and now this–

Sullivan, and his squad, or rather the survivors, stood around another dead Cat. Even dead, the Kilrathi looked intimidating. He was more massive than two Sullivans, perhaps even three. His jaw lay slack, revealing nasty looking canines, and revealing a graying tongue hanging out of the mouth. Not totally convinced this Cats was not playing possum, Fuchian shot him once in the head with his plasma rifle. After that, there was no doubt.

Examining the dead alien, Sullivan was surprised to see even the Cat's gear was alien looking. The plasma rifle– at least he assumed it was one– ended with a four-pronged projection. They were bayonets of a sort, spaced out around the barrel at ninety degree intervals. Unlike bayonets of long past days, these blades were fused with the rifle. He had in his possession a utility knife, a wicked looking curved blade, that looked more talon than knife. The rations did not look so alien; some type of dried meat or another. The Cat wore a belt that attracted most of the interest.

So much so, that a medic, a Captain at that, scanned it with his portable sensors. Like the red and black uniform, the belt was made of leather. It was an odd color, a pale tan. Just looking at it gave Sullivan the shivers, and for good reason.

When the Captain looked up at the grunts around him, he just shook his head in resignation. "What's the verdict, Sir?"

The Captain let out a sigh that declared he saw more of these belts than any man should. "It's human, if that's what you're wondering Sergeant. Beyond that– I'll have to take it back to the lab to see if we can identify the victim."

Just looking at the leather belt made out of human hide made Sullivan want to lose what little he ate for lunch, and lose it violently. He tried not to think if the poor soul was dead or alive when skinned. Worst of all, this was not the only such belt. Marines were finding them all over the battlefield. The rumor mill claimed that these belts were made from men the Cats personally killed in combat. Identifying the remains was not easy, for the leather could have come from the original conquest of Mac Six, or from a dozen other battles on an equal number of worlds.

"Sir," one of the grunts, a Private Morris, asked nervously. "Are you finding any corpses out there that have been defiled? You know, parts cut off?"

"If you mean mutilated, no. Cats don't think that way. Defilement of a sexual nature doesn't impress them in the least bit." The Captain understood just what Morris was trying to ask. Having certain parts of the body removed was a fate worse than death. At least the dead had no worries.

"Their insults run more along culinary lines," Fuchian, a veteran of many such atrocities, explained. He turned to the Captain. "Any of those sort of defilements?"

The Captain nodded. "All too many. Just yesterday I examined a butcher's shop with a freezer stuffed full of quartered people."

Sullivan heard the stories, though not from official propaganda circuits. Demonizing the Cats was one thing, and not too difficult to do. Displaying the extent of their brutality was another matter. Before enlisting, he never heard of humans who were shot, skinned and left hanging on meat racks. The Cats would eat them, though they seemed to prefer humanity's livestock over the masters. No, the Cats mostly made this sort of bloody mess for terror's sake.

The Captain did not go into details about what he found. Not good for morale, Sullivan supposed. Same reason the news never showed dead infants crammed into ovens on the Five O'clock news. Sullivan never saw such a sight, but knew it was going to haunt his dreams. What little sleep he managed to catch was full of the sort of visions that belong in a demented horror movie director's head.

"Why do they do it?" Sullivan heard himself ask. It was a foolish question.

The Captain shrugged. "To them, being treated like livestock or prey animals is the ultimate insult. It's not enough that they have to burn the city down while they're pushed back, they have to break the city's spirit as well." The officer glanced around the spaceport's perimeter, and further out into what use to be downtown Doveshire. "Looks like the Kilrathi are already well on to accomplishing the former."

Sullivan never knew hatred. Bitterness and resentment, but those passed. What burned in him had to be close to the genuine article. Maybe the Cats' Navy had a sense of honor, but their soldiers did not. What sort of savages, not satisfied with pillaging burning, resort to turning their victims into clothing? Or chunks of frozen meat. By the way the Doc spoke, Sullivan wondered if the Cats did anything like this before the Marines returned. The faces of the civilians he and his squad have ran across said they suffered a lot, and they were only the Terrans that the aliens ignored.

There was still forced labor camps throughout occupied space, not to mention slave pens and markets throughout the Kilrathi Empire. The Varni were reduced to chattel, those not lucky enough to escape to Confed. Most of those, living on worlds closest to their former homeworld, were now under the Cats' claws. What the Cats did to their conquests was nothing compared to what Confed did with the Wu. After conquest, the Wu were assimilated, and now behave like good little boys and girls. Kilrathi showed no interest into turning their victims into Cats. Sullivan knew more about Wu than any other aliens, enough to know that their culture ran parallel to humanity, making it easy for the ones off the reservation to accommodate themselves.

Mac Six was nothing but new experiences, all of them infuriating. Sullivan felt rage boiling in his gut. Maybe Confed should kill them all, rid the universe of the monsters. It might not make them better than the Kilrathi, but the Cats fought in absolutes. It was 'us or them' all the time, and Sullivan was determined that his side would survive.

Fuchian had the same idea, but for the moment he was more concerned about his squad. "Come on, Marines, let's get a move on. Pretty stupid for us all to bunch together like this." Fuchian hid an embarrassed grin.

The Captain nodded. "It would be best to make you nice target in a place that I'm not currently occupying."

Fuchian saluted, taking the hint. "Good luck finding who that originally belonged to."

The Captain sliced off a piece of the belt into a biological sample tube. "Watch your backs."

Sullivan wondered what Confed did with all the belts they captured. Probably burned them. Sullivan could think of nothing else to do with them. Burying chunks of humans did not make a whole lot of sense. Of course, burial never made sense to any Spacer. The dead on Earth Station had their water and nutrients reclaimed and recycled into the farms. The rest was shot out towards the Sun, a burial in space. Sullivan knew some of the Marines refused to eat anything from a station or habitat because of that. It was the same silliness as fishermen refusing to eat crab, because those crabs might have scavenged off dead sailors.

"What's that jar head doing now?" McCoy asked, interrupting Sullivan's train of thought. Sullivan shook his head and shrugged. What jar head? The city was full of them. "Over there," he pointed at four Marines gathered around a dead Cat.

Other Marines noticed too, including the squadron's leader. Fuchian scowled at the other Marines. Sullivan saw that all four had knives, including one wicked looking Kilrathi blade. They were cutting away at the Cat. "Are they skinning him?"

Fuchian continued to scowl. "Idiots. Don't any of you ever let me catch you doing that. Claws are one thing, Cat-skin rugs are quite another."

Watching those Marines take the hide of the dead Kilrathi made Sullivan wonder what this war was doing to humanity's soul. Thirteen years of war, and his fellow humans were already becoming as callous as the Kilrathi. Or perhaps reverting to a more savage state. Sullivan rescinded his earlier thoughts about assimilation. Perhaps Terrans and Kilrathi were more alike deep down than anybody cared to admit. No matter how warm a day, the idea sent a shudder down his spine.


	6. Chapter 6

**Doveshire**

**Chapter 6**

**Last Kilrathi Stronghold**

**Doveshire**

**McAuliffe VI**

Sullivan was not about to breath a sigh of relief. Even if the Kilrathi in Doveshire were bottled up in one last strong point within range of the spaceport, he was not about to let down his guard. He had no idea how many Marines died with the end in clear view. Sullivan was not prepared to become a statistic. Along with McCoy, to who he stuck like glue for the whole battle, Sullivan found himself hunkered behind a chunk of concrete the size of a small shuttle. They were not the only Marines trying to make their way up a slight rise towards what was once an industrial warehouse.

Instead of the noise of heavy equipment, the air was filled with the noise of artillery, both shell and missile, firing from Kilrathi positions. Instead of focusing on the oncoming Marines, the Cats left in Doveshire were intent on leaving nothing of the spaceport in tact. The Cats knew they were trapped, and aimed to deny their enemy a complete victory. A few Kilrathi have attempted to relieve their comrades inside the city, but as occasional flashes of low-yield fusion warheads in the north, it was clear the Navy was not about to let that happen.

It was a shame to have so much farm land reduced to glass. He knew little about agriculture in wild dirt, but being a Spacer, it was always a shame to let any useable area go to waste. The Navy was certainly wasting that land, and anything alive upon it. A new flash off in the distant, and the rising of boiling cloud of debris, lit up the night. Not that the night required much light, not with fires still raging behind and before Sullivan.

"You know, times like this I wish we were fighting humans," McCoy said, as he pulled his face back from a corner. Attempts to peer around the slab of concrete could occasionally end fatally.

"Whatever for?" Sullivan could not figure out why. Humanity fought itself so long and with ever increasing efficiency, it was a wonder they did not wipe themselves out. They almost did centuries ago. Without habitations in orbit and on the moon, Earth might never have recovered from the nuclear war. Even after that, and rebuilding, humanity still fought itself. In the past two centuries, however, humans finally managed to get their aggressive tendencies under control. At least until the Kilrathi appeared on the scene, bringing humanity's brutality back to the surface.

McCoy had a sour smile on his face. "Our own have sense enough to know when they're beat. The Cats? No! They won't surrender, which means we get to go into that place and kill every last one of them."

"Works for me," one of the other Marines replied, with a few grunts of agreement from his buddies.

Even Sullivan was ready to kill them all, but not at the cost of his own life. Just why did they want to capture this site? It was far enough from the spaceport that obliterating it would not damage their objective. "Why doesn't the Navy just blast it off the map?"

McCoy shrugged. He had the same thought. "Must be something inside the Brass wants. The Sarge told me once that a his platoon, back at Hubble's Star, stormed a headquarters. Half the platoon died just to retrieve a few files the Cats hadn't yet burned."

Sullivan heard the story. Turned out those files were maps of Kilrathi defenses. Those plans helped saved more lives than they cost. A good trade overall, but try telling that to the grunts who were wasted in the process. Sullivan had no great desire to die for maps. Sullivan was about to voice his opinion when a missile fell short and burst fifty meters to their backs. The concussion of the blast threw him against the concrete block along with every other Marines. Sullivan tried to blink the stars from his eyes. His ears rang as well, but he decided vision took immediate priority.

McCoy was stunned as well, but recovered just that much faster. "They don't get much closer than that," he shouted at the top of his lungs. Even such a bellow could barely be heard.

Sullivan only nodded in response. He could feel blood dripping out of his nose. Explosions that loud sucked up much air. Had he not been about to talk, he might have had the air sucked right out of his lungs. Artillerymen told tales that exploding warheads could kill without even leaving a mark. Sullivan discovered, not for the first time, that it rang true. Three of the Marines who hunkered down beside him were not moving. One Marine's cause of death was obvious; a chunk of metal the size of a rifle stuck out of his chest. The other two— they just looked dirty.

The impaled one and one of the others, Sullivan knew only by name. Lattery and Jailor; just how the latter received his name, Sullivan never knew. The third was one from his own squad. He enlisted in the Marines when he was eighteen, and the Corps took him out of his small town in the Avalon Sector and thrust him towards the other side of the Confederation. Now the bronzed man, his skin almost red, lay still in the night.

McCoy let out his own string of curses. Dumb luck of war, he called it, though McCoy used stronger words. Sullivan had to agree. The only reason he was still breathing was that he exhaled when the explosion hit. The others— inhaled, with the possible exception of Lattery. Giant steel spears can put a crimp on anyone's day.

Sullivan's hearing began to return to him. His first indication was the sound of static. Orders were coming over his helmet's radio. He did not need razor sharp hearing to guess what those orders would entail. He looked at McCoy, who only shook his head in resignation. It was time to end this fight. He could already see other Marines, in their defensive position, slowly crawling forward. "We better join them," McCoy said without relish. It would not do well for a Marines to hide out during the last round. Sullivan's only thought as he joined the crawling masses was a wish to live to see another sunrise.

**Doveshire Spaceport**

Sullivan's wish was granted, several times over. Three sunrises later, his squad, the battered and filthy survivors, marched back to the spaceport. Doveshire Spaceport was in ruins, but its landing pads were cleared in record time, thanks to the aid of the locals. In just three days, the Confederation Army managed to land close to a hundred thousand soldiers. Confed's greatest strength was not its soldiers or ships, but its organization. What other state in the history of humanity, could have landed so many soldiers in so short a time?

Sullivan envied the soldiers their clean, crisp uniforms. He knew that would not last. The Marines, down twenty-two percent, spent– Sullivan did not care what the calender told him. It felt like months to years out there. The Marines were ragged-looking after the liberation of Doveshire. He did not even want to imagine what the Army would look like after conquering an entire planet. The planet probably would not even be declared secure for at least a year.

As far as the Navy was concerned, Alexandria Station was Mac Six. As soon as the station was cleared of remaining Cats and brought back into action, the fleet could push deeper into the Cat lines. Sullivan hoped his squad, down three, was headed out of the system. He hoped it, but imagined they would probably be sent to Alexandria. After all, the T.C.M.C. was intended for boarding actions from its founding. Securing planetary beachheads was almost an after thought. The Army needed its way cleared by a rapid-action force, and the Corps was there.

Sullivan looked at the faces of some of the soldiers. They were as young as him, and had the same apprehensive looks in their eyes. Did Sullivan look like that when he first hit dirt? They looked so young too. The thought amused him. Some of the newbies were probably older than him. As mature– a couple of weeks fighting the Cats matured Sullivan well beyond his years. What he saw in combat– he would not wish those visions on anyone.

Sullivan did not join as a few of the Marines began to jeer the Army, taunting the newbies. Bad enough to have the Cats to fight; your own side harassing you was too much. McCoy, for wonders, was quiet. If anybody was ready to give someone a hard time, it was he. Instead of his usual antics, McCoy just walked along, exhaustion spelt out clearly upon his face. A twinkle in his eye said his mischievous streak was not dead, just on vacation.

Sullivan heard Fuchian grumble at the idiots the Corps enlists. "Hey Sarge," Sullivan asked on impulse. "Are they all this bad?"

Fuchian paused, considering as Sullivan caught up with him. His sigh told as much as his words. "Sullivan, I fought on a dozen planets and stations, and this as bad as they come." Fuchian said no more, turning inward instead.

McCoy slapped Sullivan on the back. "You hear that, Sully? It's going to be a cakewalk after Mac Six. Lucky dog; when I was first blooded, I didn't have a drill-tank trying to run me down." The memory brought a shiver to Sullivan. That inferno was one of a thousand images he wished he could blank from his mind. Even if he succeeded, it would only last as long as he was awake. When sleep arrived and dreams overtook him– one more thing to look forward to in the coming years.


End file.
